


Hatedoms & Antifandom: An Apologist History of Anti-Shur'tugal [Meta]

by osteophage



Category: Eragon (2006), The Inheritance Cycle - Christopher Paolini
Genre: Antifandom, Fan history, Gen, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-19 15:04:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22979584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osteophage/pseuds/osteophage
Summary: Metacommentary on the early 2000s Anti-Shur'tugal community, formed in response to the Eragon fandom.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Hatedoms & Antifandom: An Apologist History of Anti-Shur'tugal [Meta]

**Author's Note:**

> This work is being posted to AO3 for the March Meta Matters Challenge, originally posted to [Pillowfort on July 11, 2019](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/747160).

I want to talk to you about **fandom & the "anti" prefix **\-- but **no, not like that.** This post has nothing to do with shipping, or sexual mores, or Tumblr-centric flamewars of any kind. 

Allow me to explain. 

A [couple](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/247961) of [different times](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/312460) on Pillowfort, I've linked to a Tumblr essay entitled ["how web 2.0 (and especially tumblr) is ruining fandom."](https://chrysocollatown.tumblr.com/post/170269828326/how-web-20-and-especially-tumblr-is-ruining) It's a post that I appreciate for thoroughly explaining some things in a way that was really eye-opening for me. In this post of my own here, though, what I want to talk about will be a response to just this one part, where the author presents a summary of the main argument:

> fandom on web 2.0 - tumblr in particular - is overrun with widespread misinformation, black & white reasoning obliterating nuanced debates, mob rule and shame culture as substitutes for moderation features, fear of dissent and oversensitivity to disagreement, hatedoms and anti- communities, and large/expanding pockets of extremist echo chambers.

Did you catch that? It’s easy to skim right over it, but in this sentence, "hatedoms and anti-[blank] communities" are here lumped in with the likes of mob rule, oversensitivity, black & white reasoning, and echo chambers -- all named as negative consequences of Web 2.0. Here, wanting to avoid or discourage all of these things equally is taken as a matter of course. In the full post, **the condemnation of antifandom goes unqualified,** without further specification or elaboration on **what makes them bad, under what conditions, or why.** Antifandom is simply treated as unequivocally bad, so obviously so as to warrant no explanation at all. In the author’s own immediate subcultural context, I'm sure this makes complete sense to them. Perhaps in their mind, an "anti-[blank] community" can only ever look like one thing.

So in order to respond to that, I want to talk about Eragon.

Or more precisely, the Inheritance Cycle. Or... more precisely, the Inheritance fandom. Or _more_ precisely, the _backlash_ to the Inherentance fandom, among fantasy fans themselves. I want to talk to you about a 2000s-era "anti-" community that had nothing to do with ship wars and, as far as I can tell, never once even _touched_ Tumblr.

I want to talk to you about Anti-Shur’tugal. 

#### What was Anti-Shur’tugal?

The story starts with the original Eragon/Inherentance Cycle [fansite](http://www.shurtugal.com/) & [forum](https://inheritance.fandom.com/wiki/Shurtugal.com), which had been dubbed, yes, you guessed it: Shur’tugal. The forum half of the site’s long gone now, but technically you can still find archived captures of it from [2005](https://web.archive.org/web/20050829023709/http://www.eragonforums.com/), [2006](https://web.archive.org/web/20060701043823/http://www.inheritanceforums.com/), and [2007](https://web.archive.org/web/20071012020048/http://www.inheritanceforums.com/). 

In order to understand what happened, you need to remember that _Eragon_ \-- the first book of the series -- was, at one time, enormously popular. You also should remember that this book had been written by a teenaged child, and... it showed. Consequently, many readers, even young readers, found it easy to find flaw with Christopher Paolini’s writing. This fact, _combined_ with extensive publisher promotion and a lot of fan hype, set the stage for a serious wave of hype backlash. 

According to an explanation posted via [ImpishIdea](http://impishidea.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=484&page=2), the community of Eragon critics began "somewhere on the IMDB forums for the Eragon film," in 2006, "and a bunch of people agreed that Eragon was just too stupid and hackneyed to rightfully get its own movie." In other words, the source of consensus -- or **what made people indignant** \-- was that **this book was getting more attention than it "deserved,"** **as gauged by its _quality_ as a piece of storytelling**. The moral sensibilities here were, largely, aesthetic and intellectual, by which I don’t mean "smart" but rather "on the basis of intellect" -- evaluating Christopher Paolini’s work on the scale of smart vs. stupid. This nascent community would soon form a new forum of its own: **Anti-Shur’tugal, a forum devoted to**[ **"literary critique."**](http://impishidea.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=484&page=1)

Before long, Anti-Shur’tugal had made a name for itself. In [this 2007 Inheritance Forums thread](https://web.archive.org/web/20071016192237/http:/inheritanceforums.com/index.php?showtopic=31185), for instance, one user even recommends the Anti-Shur’tugal site as a place to learn more about the criticism of the series. It's unclear how much criticism permeated the Inheritance Forums or how it was overall regarded. On the one hand, it did have [a whole subforum](https://web.archive.org/web/20071013194149/http:/inheritanceforums.com/index.php?showforum=174) devoted to "Critique," which suggests that critique wasn't completely against the rules. You can find archived threads from that subforum [here](https://web.archive.org/web/20071017203904/http:/inheritanceforums.com/index.php?showtopic=23584) and [here](https://web.archive.org/web/20071017204100/http:/inheritanceforums.com/index.php?showtopic=15316). However, in the latter, user SergantMajorJeff warns, "Just to let you know, this is going to be closed real fast. Mods are sick of this type of stuff," and user Carnoc agrees, saying, "True, true, they'll say to post in the critique corner and then close and promptly delete this. Happened far too many times before." 

The main site for Anti-Shur’tugal no longer survives, but there was also a [LiveJournal community](https://antishurtugal.livejournal.com/profile) for it started in 2006. You can still see [the initial welcome post](https://antishurtugal.livejournal.com/288.html) for it, which contains another link back to the now-dead original site. The first few posts after that one, just to give you an impression, ask about [Paolini's potential as a writer](https://antishurtugal.livejournal.com/632.html), the [appropriateness of referring to Tolkieneque races as "stock" races](https://antishurtugal.livejournal.com/1018.html), and [dragon repopulation](https://antishurtugal.livejournal.com/1411.html). 

In the same vein, no account of this series' criticism would be complete with a mention of the [Eragon sporkings](https://web.archive.org/web/20090714004322/http://eragon-sporkings.wikispaces.com/). To "spork" -- a synonym for [MST](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MST) \-- refers to the addition of running commentary to a text, making fun of it in some way. This is generally intended to be funny, not necessarily insightful. It was via the Eragon sporkings page that I remember first encountering the [Eragon Epistles](http://impishidea.com/info/the-epistles), now redacted by their author. Works like these, as I understand it, were most likely some of the criticism posted to the original Anti-Shur’tugal site.

#### What were Anti-Shur’tugal members called? 

Generally speaking, there didn’t seem to be any particular designation for A-S members. They were not considered a particular Type Of Person or follower of any given particular ideology. There wasn't a widely-used moniker for what they were. Mainly, from what I’ve been able to recover, what they called themselves was Anti-Shur’tugal, as a name for the community itself. 

However, external and internal references did sometimes lean on the "anti" prefix. For example, [this 2007 Gamespot thread](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/932596-eragon/31764448) refers to A-S members as "anti-fans," a term also used by [ImpishIdea user Swenson](http://impishidea.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=1313). On [the A-S LiveJournal page](https://antishurtugal.livejournal.com/), you can even see how the links to the comment sections have been edited to say "[#] Anti-Riders," apparently as a reference to the dragon riders of the Inheritance Cycle. 

[ImpishIdea users Spanman and Jeni](http://impishidea.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=484&page=1), in discussing the history of A-S, even use the term "antis" as a plural noun, as does another Inheritance Forums user in [a thread I linked earlier](https://web.archive.org/web/20071016192237/http:/inheritanceforums.com/index.php?showtopic=31185), ending their post with, "I have to go save a cat stuck up in a tree. Fellow antis, take over for me." 

#### What did Anti-Shur’tugal talk about? 

Anti-Shur’tugal was primarily devoted to criticism of the book series itself, generating essays (like the Epistles) premised on **the notion of "literary critique" and "good" vs. "bad writing."** With its accusations of "bad writing," A-S seemed largely concerned with evaluating **the creative, stylistic, and technical elements** of the books. Continuity, pacing, grammar, characterization, plot, originality, and accusations of plagiarism were all fair game here. "Bad" stood for low quality in a very general sense. "Bad" was _not_ , itself, a necessarily moral designation. 

To be comprehensive, though, that doesn’t mean there was nothing said about Paolini’s moral framing at all. Moral issues within the books themselves (that is, discussed as such by characters) concerned the morality of violence, meat-eating, and religion -- and Paolini’s own stances on these issues was made painfully clear by the race of perfect superior magical vegetarian atheist elves. This provided a convenient frame of reference for accusing him of moral hypocrisy; I remember the Epistler had a field day with, for instance, the fact that the protagonist considered it immoral to kill an ant, because he valued all life, but seemed to have no such problem with killing _people_.

Naturally, Anti-Shur’tugal had its own detractors to defend itself from, and its conflicts with the fandom were bitter. In addition to making arguments about the quality of the books, Anti-Shur’tugal & similar critics also had **to defend _the act_ of making such arguments** \-- their salience, their relevance, their moral acceptability, their credibility, their use of time that could have been spent elsewhere. One of the common retorts to their arguments took the form of "Could you do it any better?" and "Well, what books have _you_ written?" ...Or in other words, **detractors called into question the critic's credentials** , implying that one ought to be a better writer (preferably a published writer) in order have the right to call Paolini a bad one. In this way, detractors largely engaged Anti-Shur’tugal in the same terms as some of their own arguments: evaluating specific people as either "good writers" or "bad writers." Another prominent retort took the form of **telling critics that they were just "jealous."** And in fact, some even agreed: they _were_ jealous, because what made Paolini’s popularity so aggravating to them was the perception that he didn't "deserve" it.

As far as I can tell, Anti-Shur’tugal was not concerned with any element of the Inheritance fandom not connected back to _the series itself_. That is, they cared about just the canon and others' evaluation of the canon. I've found no evidence to suggest that they ever directed any criticism at fanfiction. To be fair, they did clash with and fight with the fandom proper, but the crux of those conflicts had to do with either accepting or rejecting the proposal that "Paolini is a bad writer." Again, this debate mostly invoked the axis of smart vs. stupid -- Anti-Shur’tugal considered parts of the fandom to be "dumb," not necessarily predatory or depraved. Sexual or romantic preferences weren’t really much of a sticking point. Shipping wasn’t even on the radar.

#### Was Anti-Shur’tugal good or bad? 

Anti-Shur’tugal was (or is!*) a community like any other: they said some good things and they said some bad things, and they had plenty of their own internal drama, just like any boisterous fandom will. I can no more call A-S "good" or "bad" than I can say that of any other fandom proper. 

*An [Anti-Shurtugal Dreamwidth](https://antishurtugal-reborn.dreamwidth.org/) was created in 2018, to continue to ["take bad books apart."](https://antishurtugal-reborn.dreamwidth.org/471.html)

Understand, the purpose of this post isn’t to romanticize any of this or call for a return to some idealized, more noble time. I'm well aware that Anti-Shur'tugal wasn't perfect (and honestly not really something to be taken as a role model). Yet that doesn’t change the fact that, when I unearthed links to the Eragon Epistles years later as a kid, it made a serious lasting impression on me as the _first_ and only time I’d found a community of people like me, who did thinking like me, who engaged with stories like me, who reveled in well-deserved criticism in the way that nourished me. This was well before I discovered McMansion Hell or Lindsay Ellis videos, mind you. There wasn’t always an entire section of YouTube dedicated to nitpicking media (and for that matter, there wasn’t always a YouTube). It might not be everybody's cup of tea, but I’m ready to stand my ground on this one: there _is_ a place for it. It's not bad to talk about what you hate. It's not bad to seek out and enjoy the company of those you agree with. It's not bad for the two of those to intersect. It's not bad for people to express their criticisms out loud and spend time discussing them with each other instead of staying politely silent. It is... to reduce this down to a few words... okay to dislike things. 

So to bring this back around to that Web 2.0 essay -- I do buy most of the author's argument, actually, aside from the casual condemnation of antifandom. I do agree with a lot of their reasoning, and I do think that the lack of protections they describe can further foster the dynamics of fandom backlash. **I just don't think a condemnation of that backlash _itself_ deserves to go unqualified.** Communities that form around opposition and condemnation, or "anti-[blank] communities," can take many forms. Some of them acceptable, some of them fun, some of them, dare I say, not at all comparable to the serious drawbacks of Tumblr. And that's something I think may become easier to realize if people simply had a wider reference pool to judge from. 

My hope, in archiving a small piece of this fandom upheaval, is to start expanding that reference pool -- and to begin to explain what associations the "anti" prefix in fandom contexts invokes for me: nothing to do with harassment or even morality, but rather, truly, simply, just disliking things and having words to say about it. 

* * *

An update on my [Anti-Shur'tugal post](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/747160): I sent the link to the Epistler's DW account via PM, just for kicks (an opportunity I couldn't pass up, really, after finding them again after all this time), and -- not only did they 1) actually reply to me (within hours), but also 2) filled me in with even more details. 

This was something that I'd suspected based on fuzzy memories but hadn't managed to find anyone saying outright, until now: the people who said negative things about Eragon, be it on IMDB or the Inheritance Forums or anywhere else, were subject to personal threats and harassment. This was a part of what inspired the move off IMDB to develop Anti-Shur'tugal as its own site. Not only that, but one person was even doxxed over the issue -- full name, email address, phone number, home address, and everything, all as punishment for running the site.

Take a moment to dwell on that, if you're used to things being the other way around. 


End file.
